


Endurance

by temporalDecay



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-06
Updated: 2015-08-06
Packaged: 2018-04-13 05:48:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4510188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/temporalDecay/pseuds/temporalDecay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even after centuries of this, he will use whatever means he can, to endure her torment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Endurance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Yursulily](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yursulily/gifts).



> First time writing this pairing, proper, so it was a fun study of the dynamics, fucked up as they are.

The ship escapes the blur of color that comes with faster-than-light travel, and he comes back to Life with a deep, shuddering gasp as his consciousness is no longer captive in the perpetually recursive calculations required to keep the ship intact through its travels at the insane speeds his Mistress demands. 

He is, once more and until She requires it again, just a troll. 

A shade more than anything, really, hanging limply from the biowires that even now slowly pump Life back into him and ensure he will endure what comes next. And he knows what comes next, from one second of blissful, exhausted ignorance to the next, full of dreadful realizations. He hangs there, too tired and worn out to do anything more beyond pulling back into the depths of his mind. He has power to burst stars into nothing and reduce planets to storms of dust, but all the power of the world isn’t enough to save him from his fate. So instead he takes careful stock of what little remains of him that is inherently _him_ , hiding it away into the pockets of conditioning and programming and all the things they did, to weave chains of flesh and duty to anchor him into his role. 

He catalogs everything, makes sure everything is carefully put away where nothing can disturb it, no matter what comes next, because if he cannot resist his fate, he will survive it. And he will survive it as himself, to the best of his ability. 

They’ve played this game many times before; after all, he knows exactly how it goes. And for all it never grows any less painful, for all She always finds a new way to destroy him, he refuses to cave in and let himself be broken. 

He would rather die than give her the satisfaction. 

  


* * *

  


The Servant comes into the Helmsblock right on time. The Servant does everything right on time, of course, because to do otherwise would mean courting death. He’s never bothered to learn the name of any of the Servants prowling along his corridors, because they’re frail, short-lived creatures bound to be destroyed by Her wrath when Her boredom and Her whims demand it. They’re no better than him, really, the unending parade of teals and greens keeping Her company and looking after her needs with single-minded devotion. 

He remembers, distantly, when there used to be a crew aboard the ship. When trolls of all colors and stations slaved away to keep Her happy and willing to spare their lives. But those days are long, long over, as Her paranoia consumes her about the same rate as his Helm consumes him, and now there’s only the three of them stuck within the walls of the ship. Or, perhaps it would be better said, there’s only Her and her Servant pet of the sweep, trapped inside his walls, stepping on his floors, sleeping in his blocks. He is the ship as much as he is a troll, these days, for better or for worse, and that means he no longer qualifies as crew. 

Still, he watches the Servant as much as he watches Her, as they each go about their business, because there’s nothing else for him to do. All the processes required to keep the ship going are automated and become little more than the twitch of power being siphoned out of his bones so steadily the pain has even stopped registering all together. The only thing that ever requires his full concentration is plotting faster-than-light flights and She demands those sparingly, because She can’t properly show off and torment her subjects during them. 

The Servant wades through knee-high helm fluid with a determined stride, not caring one bit about the way it soaks through her pants or what it might be in it. Something in the murky depths of his mind twitches at that, because he remembers the disgust in the faces of Servants past. The Servant never shows disgust, no matter what her task might be. She never shows anything, beyond a clipped, efficient indifference that he finds almost comforting. He is a duty to her, little more than footnote in her daily business around the ship. He is not a creature to be pitied or a monster to be hated. He just exists, hanging from his Helm, and every now and then she lowers the fluid he’s grown used to breathing and allows him to taste air while she goes about inspecting and making sure everything is up to standard. 

She says nothing, running her hands in a clinically impersonal way across his skin, measuring where he ends and the biowire begins. She pulls and twists and makes sure the wires are as out of the way as possible; after all, when She wants something, it’s her duty to make sure She can have it. 

The Servant never speaks to him, and he’s oddly grateful for it, because it allows him to pretend there is no witness to his humiliation, no one to see the pieces She leaves behind after she’s done with him. The Servant steps back when she’s done, and walks away without looking back. 

And in the depths of his desperation, he thinks just for that he wouldn’t kill her, if given half the chance. 

“That’s quite enough,” She says, startling them both as the Servant rearranges the biowires curled around his shoulders. “Wouldn’t do to coddle him too much,” She adds, standing in the doorway with that wide, self-assured smirk that never fails to make him bristle. “Gets _ideas_ , this one.” 

The Servant doesn’t look at him, doesn’t look at Her, either. She only drops her hands and bows her head, before she walks away without looking back. He wonders, snidely, if that’s how she pretends what they all damn well know is about to happen, doesn’t happen. But then he supposes she has no reason to care that it happens. She has no stake in him or his story or his wellbeing, or any misguided moral hang-up about the sheer wrongness that clings to Her as stubbornly as the tiara does. 

“Now then,” She says, as the door closes and the Helmsblock sinks into that dim, nauseating half-light that turns every knot of biowire into an echo of something terrifying he can’t name. Her hair glistens as it drags across the floor of the chamber, and he snarls in tune with the near hypnotic sway of her hips. “Have you been good, pet?” She purrs, reaching a hand to hold what remains of his face, smiling as she leans up until they’re forced to breath the same air. “Have you missed me?” 

He says nothing, because the price of insolence is never his to pay, for all the slight is his. He says nothing, for the sake of not allowing anyone else to die because of him, because it has been centuries now, and he’s yet to come up with something sharp enough to say. 

He says nothing, as the last act of rebellion still allowed to him, and even so, when she kisses him, he knows she chooses to take his silence as a victory. 


End file.
